After many years waiting, writing and speaking about the subject, it appears Fibre To The Home has finally made it into the mainstream news.
So, in order to help others who may not have been involved in campaigning for FTTH for the last decade, this blog has been set up to try to keep all those who need to know about FTTx up to date with developments (or not if BT and BIS have their way), opinions, current thinking, functional projects etc.

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Wednesday, 9 November 2011

The Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP today (yesterday for many of you!) cyberopened Cyberbarn by fusing a length of fibre which, in an ideal world, would have been wrapped around a laptop sporting a presentation about Cyberbarn as there was no way in his Olympic schedule to get him through our door in Warcop. Nothing ever quite happens as you expect......

The Olympics event overran by a whole hour, which left Cumbrian businesses and campaigners without a moment to see Jeremy before he had to hotfoot it to Carlisle for his main purpose of the day - the Olympics, sport etc. Somehow, our MP Rory Stewart persuaded Jeremy he could spare the broadband group 5 minutes. ECCBF (East Cumbria Community Broadband Forum) spoke about the ethos, purpose, structure etc we are exploring, which is a message which needs disseminating more widely as Cumbria is a pilot for these things with BDUK and that £830M. Other pilots should be talking to us just as we need to talk to you.

Jeremy *had* to leave to get to Carlisle. But we (read: Lindsey) simply couldn't allow him to leave without fusing some fibre in Cumbria in 2011 and opening Cyberbarn (although the real world opening still falls on Rory's shoulders, and if you have two minutes, please ask BT Open Reach CEO, MD etc for the loan of their new super shovel for that occasion!).

I am extraordinarily grateful to John Colton of Lucidos for pointing out to me when I rang yesterday and said, "I don't want to sacrifice any of my fibre so he can 'cut a ribbon'..." that we were going about it the wrong way. John turned up with a splicer so Jeremy could fuse fibre - sweet!

And then Jeremy signed our Cyberbarn certificate (which had been made by me when I thought he was going to leave the building without even a minute to spare to meet us).

It's been a very long day - I have just got home. I can't even begin to write how I feel. I hope for all of you following on Twitter, this will do as a start. Thank you everyone for your support in making Cyberbarn happen and for your ongoing support of me, in particular. It has been much appreciated recently.

(Oh, and as someone who used to make videos for a living, yes, I know they are not perfect, but I was presenting and filming as my video monkey has only just got home from her 18th birthday celebrations last weekend. So, no, if you're interested, she doesn't take after her mum even a smidgen!)

It was good to hear Jeremy Hunt acknowledge that "in the end it's about fibre" and that cabinets are a short-cut to the end solution. Not that it will probably change much in the way of funding as he stated at the start that the government can't afford fibre. Maybe that's true on certain business models, but as we know on different business models it is possible.

It was interesting to hear Jeremy Hunt explaining that there has to be an intermediate step of Fibre To The Cabinet on the way towards Fibre To The Home.

I wonder if he has asked BT for their pay-back estimate which apparently might be 12 to 14 years ?

Furthermore FTTC relies on the existing telephone cables such as those shown in the pictures linked to below. We understand that the failed rusted pipe has been left in that state at least from 1988 onwards.